[The Life of the Automobile] is undoubtedly one of Ehrenburg's best things. It is both a period piece, and yet amazingly fresh and relevant…. During the 1920s Ehrenburg brought out a number of very imaginative fictions…. The Life of the Automobile belongs to this group, and might be described as a semi-documentary fantasy on the origins, development, philosophy, social impact, and future of the car. Although the satirical and didactic thrust of the book is strong and perhaps over-strong—the car is seen as a focal area of ruthless capitalistic enterprise—there are also some of the expected Ehrenburgian ambiguities, both in his extension of the satire to include Soviet society in the New Economic Policy period of the 1920s, and in his infectious evoking of the new world of speed and adventure (to say nothing of convenience) that the car, however much we may want to deplore...